Page 81 - Christie's Inidian and HImalayan Works of Art, March 2019

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE HONOLULU COLLECTION
660
A SILVER- AND COPPER-INLAID BRONZE
FIGURE OF VIRUPA
TIBET, 14TH CENTURY
4æ in. (12.1 cm.) high
$40,000-60,000

PROVENANCE
The Pan-Asian Collection (Christian Humann),
by repute
Robert Hatfeld Ellsworth, by 1997
Christie’s New York, 22 March 2000, lot 58
LITERATURE
C. Reedy, Himalayan Bronzes, University of
Delaware Press, 1997, pp. 202 and 215f, fg. C171

This masterwork of Tibetan craftsmanship depicts
the accomplished Indian master or mahasiddha,
Virupa, who is credited with performing many
extraordinary deeds, such as parting the waters of
the Ganges. In reaction to being refused service
at a tavern, he simply prevented the sun from
setting in demand of more alcohol at which point
the local king, highly concerned, settled his bill in
order to free the sun. Virupa is depicted here with
his right arm raised in the threatening gesture
of tarjanimudra, ordering the sun not to move.
The inscription, as translated by Chandra Reedy,
alludes to this story:
“Salutations to the one with the dark red body who
makes dangerous persons shake, who holds the
skull of immortality in the left hand, who sits in the
manner of the king of all, who holds up the sun.
Auspiciousness.”
The fgure is carefully articulated in the round
with fnely detailed hair at the back. Compare the
present with a closely related fgure of Virupa, with
his right hand lowered instead of holding the skull
cup, provided as fgure a, as well as two examples
in the Berti Aschmann Collection, illustrated by
H. Uhlig in On the Path to Enlightenment, Zurich,
1995, cat. nos. 122 and 123.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org),
item no. 20403.

Figure a: “Mahasiddha Virupa, Tibet; dated
13th-14th century, Brass, H. 0.130m,”
U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes,
Hong Kong, 1981, p. 468, fg. 128C
79